


night doesn't burn the colors

by Analinea



Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [7]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Day 11, Gen, Psych 101, The others are mostly mentionned, Whumptober 2020, ah also i goes without saying that Malcolm has PTSD, alt prompt memory loss, canon levels of talking about death and medicine I suppose, malcolm emotional whump, this is not a 5+1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26948527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: Side effects, in any case, have never been a synonym of medication for him, but one of life. Heistrauma. Every toxic piece of him derives from one singular moment, a list that goes on and on ofcommon side effects may include; his past, unlike the pills, brings no benefit to the table.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947337
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	night doesn't burn the colors

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: this is my first fic for Prodigal Son (whumptober has been a lot of firsts for me ey?) so I hope it's good, there'll be some other works this month maybe in a different style, we'll see!
> 
> Second of all: I have done some research on benzos, but I apologize if the side effect aspect of this story is still inaccurate. For the longest time I had no idea what to do with the prompt except that I wanted it for Prodigal Son, and then a friend gave me an idea, and then I remembered that canon was offering everything I needed on a platter and I didn't even see it *shrugs* so I went with this! 
> 
> Enjoy!

One. Malcolm is wildly dependent on benzos. He’s not an idiot, see, he  _ knows _ , but at some point he passed the tipping point of safety and he decided to keep going instead of stopping. If he’s the same as his mother, in that.

Side effects, in any case, have never been a synonym of medication for him, but one of life. He  _ is _ trauma. Every toxic piece of him derives from one singular moment, a list that goes on and on of  _ common side effects may include _ ; his past, unlike the pills, brings no benefit to the table.

He solves crime, that could count. He might even say he saves lives, though he’d argue that it always takes losing at least one to catch the killer. In any case, his work may be his selling point, the only one, and when you look at it closely it’s the only way anyone ever wants him. 

Other than that– he has no other choice than to swallow each bitter pill when the sun just came up. He’s too broken for anything else; he’d be too broken without it. It’s a consolation, at least, that he can somewhat function like a living thing. He even...kind of forgets about the whole benzodiazepines-cause-cognitive-gaps situation. As in anterograde amnesia. 

The inability to convert new information into long-term memories. 

Which is the kind of dark irony he laughs at.

“Is there a special occasion?” he asks, coming into work to find an assortment of cupcakes sitting nicely in a white box.

There’s a short pause, JT’s raised eyebrow. “It’s Dani’s birthday. I told you ‘bout that all week, didn’t I?”

Two. He’s fine. 

He used to think that a slight memory impairment in a long list of everything that could go wrong was worth his mind not completely giving up on him. It’s not the worst thing about the meds. 

He even has a good compensating strategy: solving cases means having them on his mind every hour of every waking and sleeping hour, means having no time to forget about the details of it. 

As for personal life, he doesn’t have one, and his mother and sister are always going on and on about the same thing to the point where he has no choice but to remember.

The present passes and slides over Malcolm; at first he believes that this way, nothing can catch and hurt and leave indelible traces. He won’t weigh more in the balance of fucked up.

Then the scale doesn’t tip so much as completely explodes. The Girl comes out of the metaphorical box living in his mind, takes his ten years old self on a camping trip, evades his best attempts at following her. She’s wind or water or whatever else can be used to say she slips between his fingers constantly.

“Is there a special occasion?” he asks.

“I told you ‘bout that all week, didn’t I?”

Three. Malcolm needs to be able to wake up. He believes a lot of things, one of those being that dreams can kill.

Hence, the insomnia. 

Though the nightmares are horrible, Malcolm has become the unusual lover of the quiet hours. Night from the safety of home is soft, and gentle. It’s merciful.

And he’d rather be sleep deprived than dead, it’s an easy calculation; he’s already so far along the line of self-destruction, he won’t let himself fade into the nightmares too. He won’t ever admit to his intangible death wish, but he won’t lie to himself about it. 

Malcolm, on a case involving a mall employee and a pair of scissors, looks around the shop they found the body in. Perfect outfits are on presentation– Malcolm minds branches out constantly and he ponders how washing a well-loved piece of clothing is a violent act, in the end. The wear and tear, the drying, the sunlight. 

He looks back at the victim, blood saturating their shirt. Day to day, the fading of the colors is impossible to assess. Death is a gradual thing –at least it should be. 

Malcolm wonders what’s worse, between the snuffing of the light and watching yourself wither away.

He watches himself wither away. Watches the colors never take on the fabric of his brain. He doesn’t have an answer.

So he keeps taking his meds, and he keeps restraining himself to his bed, falling asleep, dreaming, screaming, waking. Slowing his breaking down with prescriptions. Rinse and repeat. He wonders who he’d be if he stopped, how much worse. 

He wonders who he’d be, if he could sleep instead of having to wake up.

“Is there a–?”

“–all week, didn’t I?”

Four. But the child in him…

The kid he used to be tries to get out, desperately scratches at the walls of the person he became. The loss he spent so many years containing –his innocence– drips out with every shake of his hand. 

_ I’m an adult now _ , he reminds himself,  _ I’m not supposed to be innocent anymore _ . But Malcolm looks around himself, at all the other grown ups walking down the street. They never saw a dead body in their lives. 

Never dreamed of a girl in a box who made them call the cops on their good father.

They’ll never be haunted. 

It’s unfair.

Sometimes, instead of wishing Martin Whitly had never been a killer, Malcolm wishes the rest of the world knew his pain. Then he remembers Gil at Jackie’s funeral. 

There’s something to be said about the brain’s tendency to store up the accidents and the fights: legacy of survival. Malcolm’s day to day is a tape erased by the magnet of chemicals in his veins; but the sadness.

That, it stays. 

The girl in the box, she stays. 

She unburies herself..

Chloroform versus benzodiazepines. Whole sections of his history vanished into the ether –Edrissa would appreciate that metaphor. 

“–special–”

“–week–”

Five. It’s the number of pill bottles on his counter every morning. According to the devout people in his life, five is a God’s grace. A favor towards humans. It’s exactly how much it takes for Malcolm to start his day. It makes him laugh.

“It’s Dani’s birthday–”

Five seconds is how long Malcolm stands before the obvious truth of his bad memory takes a new meaning: his father wasn’t even a good one. His father hurt him soul  _ and _ body. Malcolm has lost years worth of memories.

He collapses. 

Hands try to catch him but he ends up cross-legged on the carpet, one hand still clutching the corner of the table. The world becomes a moving painting, smudged colors, abstract representations of faces with wide unfathomable eyes; soundless.

“What’s happening?”

He breathes too much. His therapist explained hyperventilating to him, once. He found that fascinating, but unlike many other sciences psychology isn’t one you want to first-hand experience.

The tremors move up from his fingertips to his wrist, to his arm, to his heart; he’s a dancing skeleton shaked apart by his frantic pulse. Maybe he’s dying.

Maybe that way he won’t have to dream anymore. 

His brain has learned survival the hard way, though, doesn’t like the idea. Tries to correct that but makes it worse. Malcolm would find that amusing, if he wasn’t lost somewhere between reality and the inside of a leather trunk. 

“Hey, breathe, kid.”

Malcolm has spent the first ten years of his life believing one day he would grow up and become a doctor. At eleven, his future died with the twenty-three alleged victims of the Surgeon. 

He’s been left out in the too harsh sunlight ever since, blinding brightness washing all the good away. 

Malcolm wanted to become like his dad.

Turns out they were both pretty good at the artificial removal of memories.

“Bright?”

Dark spots take over in front of his eyes.

“Malcolm. Breathe.”

_ Oh _ . 

His hand is taken in a rough, calloused one, placed on a warm chest. “Follow my lead.”

_ Alright _ , he thinks.

Malcolm used to want to be a doctor. Then he thought– he thought he’d be like the best man he’s ever met; he’d fight the bad guys, the killers, the fathers. 

He has forgotten a lot of important things, bad things and trivial things. 

But Gil has been there as a remembrance. Of good men, family, choice. Of golden times in the darkness.

Maybe Malcolm can...maybe he can take it one step at a time. He might have a long road ahead of him, but he’s not alone for the travel. That’s something, at least. He can hold on.

He can follow.

He takes one shaky breath.

Then two.

A third.

Fourth.

And at five, he opens his eyes on Gil’s worried, but proud eyes. Malcolm sighs as he smiles, and puts Gil’s expression next to his heart. 

Where it will never fade away.

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think? Kudos and comments are like giving hugs to Malcolm :D
> 
> I'm on [the blue T](https://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/tagged/ana-writes-sometimes) come talk to me if you're not scared


End file.
